Wednesday, March 11, 2026
I finished reading The Vegetarian by Han Kang (winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature) last week. It tells the story of this woman who turned vegetarian, but we don't actually hear much from her. There are three chapters from the points of view of her husband, brother-in-law, and sister. It begins with the husband describing his wife which he thought to be unremarkable and his freak out when this wife turned vegetarian. There's something about reading, people can read the same line and get different impression and I read it as funny the way this husband was freaking out about his wife turning vegetarian and the ban on meat in the house, when in fact I'm most probably gonna have the same emotional reaction if a decision was just imposed on me without consultation or agreement or accomodation. Reading this chapter on the husband who didn't even try to understand the wife made me think that's why you shouldn't get married just because it's perhaps what's expected of you in life and because the other person is not bad *sigh* The chapter with the brother-in-law was uncomfortable because of the weird sex thing and the last chapter with the sister was rather heart-breaking. I thought the sister was amazing for still being there for her sister after what happened in chapter 2.
This is one of those book where the ending is open to your own interpretation. Logically it will be a tragic ending, but the hopeful you may just be hopeful. In the chapter of the sister, I think it does make you think of the path of still grounding yourself to this life which may have many miserable moments because there are those who need you or the path of just fuck all this shit and do your own thing. I'm not saying good for this vegetarian lady for choosing her path because I think it's quite tragic what happened to her and I don't think she got all the help she needed that I don't know if her choices were sound, but it does make you think that each of this path is not necessarily better than the other. Anyways, I googled a bit about the book after I finished and AI told me there's some controversy about the English translation - this book was originally in Korean. The author didn't hate the English translation, but AI said there are some who pointed out that it made the story quite different. Like in my last post where I talked about how subtitles may lose nuances, well it would be interesting to know what this book is about in Korean, which unfortunately is not in my skill-set.
What else to write. I'm currently watching Bridgerton season 4. When I was home and on the way to the mall with the cousins, one of the cousin said he's watching that too and he also watches Peaky Blinders which I do too :D We touched about the movie which will come out. I wonder what the cousin thinks about this season 4; I kinda really like the girl, Sophie, and that makes me like Benedict (previously I was just ... okay). It's amazing how Bridgerton can really make you love the characters being featured in the season. I found it funny how we both watch Bridgerton and Peaky Blinders - those two are so different. I'm sure there are other people in this world who do too :D What does it say about us? Nothing much I guess. Human have so many different aspects to them and just one commonality of watching these two series can't give you much insight :D
:) eKa @ 8:31:00 PM • 0 comments
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